Its Been Awhile
by Tattooed XX's
Summary: "You're messed up Sakura. You're so far gone, but I'll be damned if I lose you, too," he growled out while gripping his hands even tighter on either shoulders. Rated M for Themes, Angst, Sex Scenes, ect.
1. Since I Could Hold My Head Up High

Warning: Drug Use and Sexual Graphics, M for Mature, Obviously

Disclaimer: My person does not own Naruto or anything affiliated.

She knew what she was doing was wrong, but it only registered as such on a very small level in her mind. After all, being a kunoichi she had done far darker and more horrendous things than steal. It wasn't even stealing in her mind for two reasons; one was that she was the head of the hospital and as such had access to everything there as if she owned it, so she could take what she owned home. The second was that she had been doing it so often and frequently for so long now it had become more of a daily habit like putting in contacts for her, although the effects were much of the same difference. They would both change her perception, one clearer than the other.

Transporting back to her office Sakrua threw her small pile of patient folders on the already cluttered desk while sighing heavily and pushing the door closed with her back. Tsunade was going to run her and Shizune to the ground if she kept passing all paperwork down the ladder. Walking around to the front of the desk Sakura pulled out the chair to sit down when she heard several knocks at the door and an incompetent nurse wailling about not wanting to give a sponge bath to a _'creepy old lech'_. Sakura simply rolled her eyes and disappeared the moment the young nurse rudely flung the door open.

Sakura fled through the tree tops at a speed most shinobi favored for A or S class missions, not for getting to their places of living while in the village, but sifting through the thoughts in her mind she disappointingly realized that she was on her own life or death mission for herself. She quickly but very shakily performed her hand signals to deactivate the jutsu locked door to her humble apartment. Now that she was in her own house, not home no Sakura never had a home and never would, her erratic breathing slowed somewhat as a devious mind-grin spread through her body as anticipation began to flow through the cold veins.

Her mind went back to the previous weeks at the hospital. Several daimyo's had asked for their nieces and daughters to be put under her tutalage, but that was just a pretense. The young girls had no passion for helping others or medical jutsus, only looking cute in their nurses outfits outside of the hospital to attract male suitors as their guardians had instructed. Air heads with no air.

Last week she had once offered to help Tsunade with her paperwork one evening, just to prolong not going home to her dark and lonely apartment. After that her shishou decided that paperwork of the hospital would help Sakura learn focus and discipline and knowing her patients better, basically a long string of excuses of why Sakura would be doing all paperwork brought to Tsunade from now on.

Then there was this week.

She had already been on call for the whole day, getting ready to check on her supplies when she was paged to the ER, and how Naruto and Kakashi had been admitted to the hospital, both unconscious and covered in more blood than she knew was in a normal human body. The wounds she had treated had been so severe that even with her confidence come from steady dedication, her past education from her shishou Tsunade, and experience from working day in and day out at the hospital, she had much doubt that they could be restored to their normal genius selves, but she and her team had worked through 20 hours straight on both of them at the same time to stabilize them. It wasn't as if she wasn't going to do what she did every day anyway, but at the prospect of losing the final two people whom held whatever was left of her very debilitated heart equally between them she had been pushed over her normal need. Not to mention the fact that she knew the very person who had caused every single fatal wound in their bodies and minds. The very person who had started to push her over the very small edge she had already been sitting on in ANBU.

Yes, she had made it to ANBU because every team needs a medic and to improve and hone all degrees of her skills as a ninja, but like all who joined she had no idea what the tattooed private prestigious ranks actually entailed, like multiple assassinations through elders to children of eight, like massacres of entire clans of rival villages much undo the Uchiha clan, like the multiple yet none consensual sexual encounters required to gain access to a target otherwise impenetrable. Sakura was running low on sanity, self respect, and soul after so many back to back missions.

Sakura promptly swept through her living room and bedroom and walked into her small bathroom, turning on the hot water faucet and leaving it to run before it was an actual hot temperature as her apartment building did not have immediate response to basement hot water heater to her sixth floor apartment. She placed either hands on opposite sides of the plain white sink in front of her and ignored the self also staring down in the half body length mirror above said sink. Sakura took three deep breathes to calm her nerves as she crouched down and released her dubbed "living kit" from underneath the sink. Then, she proceeded to remove the numerous small pills from the secret pocket inside her nurse's uniform, right above her left breast. She placed them down on the counter and then swiftly snatched thme back into the palm of her hand, as if they had no right to be sitting upon her counter. Sakura cupped her hand underneath the running water and swallowed the water to ease the pills down her throat, more for comfort than actual help.

As she sat down on the toilet with her temporary escape running down to her stomach and nerves, she looked up. The mirror had started to fog and she couldn't see herself clearly anymore. That was just fine with her, she thought as she bent her head back. Sakura had not recognized her self in a severely long time.

* * *

"Well, just the way I Love to start my mornings, alongside an absolutely gorgeous woman," Genma lined as he fell into step with Sakura while also sliding his left arm around her waist and pulling her towards him.

Sakura rolled her eyes with an acceptable smile on her pink lips. "And you just know how I adore starting mine with the town whore. After all, we must do all we can to encourage the rumors that you probably spread about us being together," she playfully retorted as they rounded the street to a small cafe they frequented when spending time together.

"Yes we must," Genma enthusiastically replied holding his hand in a fist in front of them while sitting her down with a wink at a small outside table, then preceding to strut to the counter to order their coffee.

Sakura's friendship with Genma had come so easily with all the time she spent with Kakashi and Genma being his best friend and frequently around the pair.

Sakura cringed as she thought of Kakashi and instantly banished the thought of him from her mind.

She watched Genma flirt with the woman at the counter and her eyes narrowed as a contemptable upwards turn of her lips took place. The rumors about her sleeping with him while unjustified were understandable. She had latched onto him subconsciously whenever Naruto or Kakashi were out of reach for her. She felt bad somewhat for playing Genma. She knew they were superficial friends, she kept him around almost as a sort of alibi if anyone were to question anything about her but she never slipped around him like she did around people like Ino. Genma would tell her all of his latest conquests or how he felt about after a mission, but Sakura never let out any of her own emotions back, that could cause her facade to crack and that could not happen. It was easy being with Genma, while he was caring she knew that if he got on the topic of himself he could easily go on forever and so she always steered their conversations in that direction.

Any attention on her was not for her good.

"Maybe one of these mornings I'll get my wish of being by such a beautiful woman in an earlier morning in another horizontal position,"hot breath whispered into her right ear in a raspy, younger voice. Sakura shivered. She had closed her eyes as soon as she sensed the intruder behind her and had to mentally keep herself from inhaling the masculine, familiar, and missed smell. But she did lean back unconsciously, her body so used to being inside those strong and deadly arms, and jerked as she was only left leaning on the air. She narrowed her eyes in embarrassment as Genma came back towards her. Sakura flushed, half hoping, half knowing, that Genma didn't see the man playing behind her not a moment ago.

"I'm sorry Genma but I'm just so worried about their recovery, I don't have the right mind to dedicate myself fully to you and a good conversation, I hope you understand," Sakura said while grabbing the coffee and doing a small sort of bow before disappearing in smoke, just like her former sensei.

While she was planning to go to the hospital, she had been notified of her men's awakenings only just before she had met with Genma, a certain man with certain lips and hands had invaded her already distracted mind and when she arrived at the hospital she prayed that they would think the staining blush from sensual thoughts was from her force of effort to quickly reach the hospital.

Of course Genma understood her reason, the question was if it was real. Kakashi was the closest thing of a brother to him and he also knew how deeply Sakura cared for Naruto as well but he could only hope that her rush was because of genuine concern of her rag doll family and not because she had sensed how he planned to kidnap her for the day and interrogate her about her recently _off_ behavior.

No matter how hard she had been trying, and he knew that she had been trying hard, she was scattered and unfocused, her words too forced and her smiles much to fake for his preference, marring her absolutely stunning face. How could she think that he would not pick up on the ANBU instilled tactics of hiding emotions, not only had he studied the same and better, but he was offended to think that she thought he couldn't pick up on such things. The fact that she was constantly making the subject himself was enough of a warning for Genma, what woman would willingly sit through his conversations of conquests and new techniques to try out. He did however allow her to use him as a distraction if she didn't want to talk about what was really happening with her but he needed to get to the bottom of things for her sake, his, and a couple of others who had also noticed the small scatterings of unusual mannerisms not natural to the kunoichi.

Genma sat down with his coffee at the wire table and started to form the same basic plan in a much different way.


	2. Since I First Saw You

Had a beautiful, descriptive version of this chapter written, pressed save and it went back to nothing, very pissed.

Disclaimers and Warnings still in effect.

She could be killed for this. She would kill for this. Since she was but a kid she had wanted nothing more than this.

The dew brushing her feet sent her into some sort of revered nostalgia for back when she had first started training with her Kakashi-sensei and Team Seven. She wondered if it electrified that last bit of human that was stilled within _Him_ and that's why _He_ asked, ordered, her to meet _Him_ there.

It wasn't quite morning at three am but it wasn't quite night anymore. The village had turned humid and shadowed by rolling clouds of black thunder of one of the few thunderstorms Fire Country would recieve during the summer months. Sakura found it much better to chance the secret meeting with the weather on her side, dashing and darting from shadow to crevice.

Sakura had spent the day at the hospital, checking on Naruto and Kakashi. She had bound from Genma after hearing her secret lover's whispered words and bound to a small place where her little piece of final sanity laid, the hospital, where work and distrations were in abundance. Going through the doors she smiled politely at the receptionist and made her way up the floors through the elevator. Walking through the hallway she stopped at Hatake Kakashi's door first and skimmed lightly through the chart hanging outside. Opening the door and stepping through she felt somewhat reprieved that he was holding his constant orange companion in his left arm that was hanging out of the ceiling cast it was currently resting in.

As she shut the door behind her with a whoosh he raised his visible eyebrow with a small, "Yo," his fingers, surprisingly the three not broken were the ones needed to make his signature greeting sign, in his right arm full cast went up. His left arm hung from the cast that was hooked to the ceiling for elevation and _Icha Icha_ dangled from between the fingers. His mask was gone but it was only replaced with binding wrap only to continue up his face on the left side up around his head.

"How are you feeling today, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura asked forcing back the grief she felt when she saw him and opting instead for a placating smile. She walked over to his medical bed and sat down by his left side. She slowly and tenderly rested her arm onto his cast and encouraged him to answer her truthfully while she placed her stethoscope in either ear and onto his chest.

"How are you feeling, Sa-ku-ra," He replied, his right eye gleaming at her lazily but harshly, in that expression only Kakashi could manage with half his face covered.

Sakura's smile tightened and she fought herself to not cringe back. She told herself he was simply deflecting the question with no alterior intention. "I'm not the one in a hospital bed. I know you must be itching to get out of here." She removed the stethescope and looked straight into his eyes.

Kakashi merely stared at her for another minute. "Sakura, we need to talk."

Sakura's smile started to wane as her eyes hardened. She shook the look off of her face and pushed herself up off the bed. She walked over to the IV currently attached to the Copy Nin, measuring his intake of morphine.

"About what?" she calmly asked.

Kakashi rolled his lazy eye to her, "You know about what," he replied.

Looking her up and down Kakashi could see the change in her, the damage she was slowly self inflicting. It was even more apparent if he were to simply look at her chakra flows. How she had slipped so far off the straight path without anyone catching her...it shamed him deeply. She was his former student, attached to Naruto and himself as if they were a pair of gloves. Granted he found his release in his readings of _Icha Icha_ and she should be able to find hers, but her release could not and would not be approved by anyone

Suddenly Sakura's green eyes were filled with fury, "Whatever that is it's my business. As you never seemed to find the time for me while I was your student to pay attention," and at these words she started directing more of the soothing drug into Kakashi while continuing,"I find it extremely offensive that you have the audacity to try to now. We are friends, you were my mentor, and we are equals, but you will not be the one to condemn me for this-any imaginary offense," she ended in a whisper. Sakura assumed Kakashi heard none of her last words as he fell into a state of numbing happiness.

"See you tomorrow, Kakashi," Sakura turned with a bright smile his way, then exited the room.

Kakashi let Sakura think the drug affected him. He was elite shinobi, and though nothing compared to the konoichi and her knowldege of drugs and immunities, could counteract a simple hospital drug.

He sighed outwardly. The Copy Nin was hardly ever disappointed in himself and never embarassed genuinely, but he couldn't help but berate himself for not catching the changes in Sakura after a few ANBU missions. He used to be her teacher, his job was to watch her and her progression. She may have learned to be a great actress through her ninja training but Kakashi had known her as a child so he should definitely be able to distinguish between the real her and the great pretender.

As soon as he was able to get out of this bed he would force her back to the correct Sakura, the Sakura she used to be, needed to be, the one he deemed correct for her to be.

* * *

Sakura pressed herself harshly against Kakashi's room door with her right hand clamped against her mouth to keep her from hyperventilating. How had he noticed her, how had she slipped for the Copy Nin to notice how she was changing while he was in a state of great pain. She would deal with this on another day. Dropping her hand Sakura turned promptly in the opposite direction of the hallway that would take her outside, she could not deal with Naruto today and his ever cheerful personality. She would visit again tomorrow.

Reaching her house Sakura's stomach grumbled loudly in protest that it had nothing to fill it up. Sakura took a container of leftover pasta from her fridge and put it into the microwave. Thinking about the earlier morning she had Sakura walked into her room and dropped the clothes that were currently confining her body. She walked over to her dresser containing her shinobi uniforms and gear and pulled out an ANBU complete set. She tied her hair back smartly and proceeded to walk out of the room when the open door to the bedroom caught her eye. Sakura's knees went weak and she gave in to temptation.

Bending down to get her bag of stolen hospital pills Sakura reaffirmed herself in her descision to do this and grabbed four of them.

_**'These drugs are made for the reason I'm taking them. I'm not addicted, it's a coping mechanism, that's all. As long as I remember that it's fine,'**_ she told herself as she turned and walked back to the kitchen decisevly while thinking of her brief lover's meeting this morning.

Taking a glass out of the cupboard she set it on the small table and the proceeded to pour some pink lemonade from her fridge. She thought about how he had gotten that close to her, inside the gates, inside Konoha! It was a miracle he wasn't caught, although perhaps not as his skills were almost to matching those of Kakashi's, not surpassing no matter what he wanted to think.

**__****'Kakashi, that damn man, where has he been for me lately, when I joined ANBU, when I was doing missions,'** she thought bitterly taking another pill. Stewing in her emotions Sakura only realized she was out of pills when she reached down for another only to find the table clean. Next to her a faint beeping sound started to register in Sakura's ears.

Pressing the end button she shook her head in disbelief at herself. She walked into her plain living room and sat herself against one edge of the couch so that she could watch time and the weather go by.

Sakura watched tv, did her laundry, washed dishes, cleaned her fridge, and tried to keep busy for the day.

After hours and hours of waiting and wasting time she decided it was time to appear at her rendezvous.

It was well into the beginning morning and the far off looming clouds had inched their way to exactly above Konoha and all close surroundings, such as the forest she was going to be in shortly.

Passing the walls of the city Sakura's feet took to an autopilot drive as they made their way to the deep clearing Team Seven had trained in when learning how to track or achieve something, such as the bells lessons.

So engrossed was Sakura in her memories, the hair on her neck barely had half a second to register the figure standing directly behind her before it grasped her tightly and pulled her backwards.

"What pathetic 'skills" you have to not notice a presence as immense as mine looming," he rasped out to her. His hands that were gripping her arms tightly spun her around sharply causing her to gasp. He leaned in closer to her.

"Will you ever be a worthwhile anything, to anyone, but me?" he murmured quietly into her lips before assault them with his own.

He took little time before he bit down on her lower lip, making her mouth become open for a scream that never came. Sakura felt him invade all of her, every crevice, all of her teeth, his tongue moving forcefully against her own aggresively and dominantly. Her hands automatically moved inbetween them and up to clutch at the cloak at his neck to balance herself against his assault. His fingers nails were digging into her skin with the posessiveness coursing through his arm and hand, and fingers ripping harshly at her hair, releasing it from her ponytail to be entwined and used to control the tilt of her head for better access. Finally, when she could take no more she turned her head sharply to the right and gasped in large sums of oxygen from her depleted body.

Sakura looked back up at him, into his cold black eyes that were flamed with lust and something she assumed was disgust, either at herself or at himself. She breathed out.

"Sasuke."


	3. Since I Could Stand On My Own Two Feet

**Disclaimers: I do not own or profit from Naruto.**

**This is a Kakashi/Sakura romantic pairing story.**

**Mature scenes ahead.**

**3. Since I could stand on my own two feet again.**

"Yes, Sa-ku-ra?" Sasuke mocked with his degrading smirk.

Sakrua's agape mouth audibly snapped closed and her green eyes took a submissive look to them. She knew Sasuke liked this look the best.

Sasuke pulled her back to him, wrapping his left hand around the back of her neck and ravaging her lips hurtfully. She knew that he wanted them to be bruised when they were done, when he was done with her.

Sakura jerked her head to the right side and Sasuke continued down her neck while giving a non too pleased growl at her for removing her lips, his rough hands acting such on her chest and down her back to her ass, kneading it, and then pulling her up to be wrapped around him as he laid hem onto the moistened ground.

Thunder crackled and lightning snapped behind Sasuke, making him look all the more powerful from her submissive point of view. His longer black hair styled much to the like of his brother's. His berry lips leaving wet marks on her, his white teeth nipping and marring her legs, stomach, sking. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as he started to fully remove her clothing. Quickly ripping through her bindings, Sakura sighed as he kissed and rubbed her breasts. The tears building behind the walls of her closed eyelids, as always.

She wanted this.

She wanted to make Sasuke happy.

She wanted him to want her the way she had wanted him, pined for him through all these years.

She wanted him to treat her as an equal, the elite shinobi she was, the elite ninja he was.

She wanted him to show her she was desirable to him now, laying her down beneath him and not on a city bench.

She wanted him to know they still loved and cared for him.

She wanted him to come back.

Mostly she wanted him to acknolwedge her, and if this is how he was going to do it she would take it, no matter how much it hurt, how bad she felt, how many tears she cried when she went back to her lonely bitter apartment.

She would give Sasuke all he could need to understand that was just wanted to be whole again, be a family again.

* * *

Sakura lay on the cool grass letting the rain pour down heavily on her. This was a thunderstorm, not a light dusting of rain. She could see the steam rising off her naked body, fighting the coldness of the drenching rain.

She was hoping it would cleanse her.

She was hoping it would wash away the confusing and reveal the truth.

She was hoping it would wash away her sins and let her rise anew.

She was hoping she would drown in it.

Sasuke had already left. Dressing calmly and precisley to Sakura's right as she lay flushed and red on the ground.

_**"Konoha isn't safe," Sasuke started slowly. Sakura had turned her head to be able to look at his face. He was staring at the ground in between the two of them, the small patch of dirt that contained no grass that was slowly turning into a puddle of mudd. "If I can travel so easily in and out of the gates, anyone can."**_

_**"You're stronger than most anyone Sasuke-kun," Sakura stated, annoyed that she now had to stroke his ego.**_

_**"...You would be safer traveling with me. It would be most pratical considering you could become impregnated while I'm away," Sasuke said, his icy glare at the ground turning into a staring match with her. His sure obsidian eyes fighting her confused wide green ones.**_

_**Sakura was beyond shocked. She sucked in a breath of the thick, humid air. Her cheeks burning red at the implication of carrying his child, Sakura said, "I can protect myself. Naruto will protect me. And Kakashi-sensei."**_

_**"Ha, you're so pathetic Sakura. Naievity..If your chakra control wasn't amazing for the future of my clan...I don't know why you put your faith in those so obviously incabable of anything. Then again you do it everyday with yourself now don't you, always needing me to protect you," Sasuke said as he leaned down to brush the hair off of her face and forehead.**_

_**"You make me sick," Sakura said. "And I can't be the only one. Don't you realize why I'm doing this? We want you to come home Sasuke, you have no reason to be a missing-nin anymore. I'm showing you that I'll except you in any way you need. Please. We'll give you anything you want." Sakura's hand moved onto the top of his and moved it down to her left cheek. She pressed her face into it, trying to ignore the fact that her tears were now spilling freely.**_

_**Sasuke pressed forward with lips pursed and eyes closed. Sakura's eyes widened as she thought he was going to kiss her affectionately and not sexually, but then he disappeared.**_

That was hours ago. Even though it was definitely close to seven in the morning the sky was still black as night as the storm continued to erupt in and around the village. The harsh rain was soothing to Sakura's still burning skin. Sometimes she thought his marks burned through to her.

She would make Sasuke see how much he was worth to them still. That she was worth something to him if he deemed her fit enough to carry his child, which she hoped it wouldn't have to come to to make him realize that they were already a family, always were, always will be.

Suddenly she recognised three prominent chakra figures approaching her at an alarmingly fast rate. She swiped her clothes off the ground and bound behind a thick tree, concealing and repressing her chakra.

"...His nose doesn't lie. And neither does mine. He was here, not maybe hours ago but the rain is washing his scent easily."

She recognized the voice of Kiba.

"We continue to pursue the trail until it runs cold. Then we report to the Hokage."

She recognized the voice of Neji.

"Did you drop something?" Neji asked someone.

"No, just checking for tracks. The ground is warm. Let's move."

Sakura gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth.

"Hai."

The figures split into the dark of the storm and the forest.

Sakura through her uniform back on, not noting that they were more soaking wet than her body because she just wanted to get out of the forest and back into the village. She quickly became dismayed as she realized she could not find her underwear. The dismay changed into frustration and then fear as she realized that he was picking up her underwear, not checking for tracks.

Kakashi-sensei had retrived her underwear from the scene of the crime.

What was she going to do? Obviously she wouldn't ask for them back. Hopefully she could practice her surprised face when he would bring it up to her. This was officially the worst week of her life.

Making her way back to the village and slipping over the wall she decided that she would see Naruto today. She deserved some comedic relief. And genuine, mutual love. She didn't want to stand on her own today.


End file.
